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Links, links, links…from a certain, uncertain mind.

Links: July 5, 2020

  1. My Family Saw a Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween. Then I Learned How NYPD Impunity Works.
  2. I Thought I Understood White Privilege. Then I Married a Black Man.
  3. “The coronavirus pandemic has driven many of us even further into the embrace of the internet. But can you live a truly fulfilled life online?” → The internet, mon amour
  4. It’s official: “Exploding Whale Memorial Park” ※ Previously: Oregon’s Exploding Whale — 2012 KATU AM Northwest
  5. This includes some of my favorite illusions of all time (the visual ones, not life, which isn’t a favorite illusion right now) → “Reality” is constructed by your brain. Here’s what that means, and why it matters.
  6. RIP Milton Glaser. Imagine having created even one of his two iconic works (not to mention founding New York magazine): the cover art for Bob Dylan’s 1966 Greatest Hits album or the I ♥ NY logo? And he did a whole lot more besides. ※ This thread of Milton Glaser’s memorable advice is good advice for everyone, not just artists. ※ The Things I Have Learned
  7. Additions to “ragescrolling” for the vocabulary of the longest year ever → Merriam-Webster on “Doomscrolling” and “Doomsurfing” ※ Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health
  8. I love it when ordinary objects hide strangely fascinating history: A Brief History of the Lawn Chair
  9. Quick Bits: Ed Fairburn Transforms Maps into Amazing Portraits // The Beatelles + Lady Kirk, Spock and Bones // Green Onion Chex cereal // Black Lives Matter logo in origami (instructions) // NASA’s ‘smell of space’ is available as a perfume // Explore ‘The Last Supper’ in gigapixel detail // Making fine Japanese paper from food waste
  10. Today in 1975, Arthur Ashe becomes the first Black tennis player to win Wimbledon, defeating Jimmy Connors in four sets. Ashe was an amazing man, not just for his journey from handyman’s son living in a caretaker’s cottage with his single father to dominating in a sport no other Black player had experienced significant success in before (or after: he remains the only Black man to win Wimbledon, the US Open, or Australian Open), but for his philanthropy and civil rights work both in the United States and South Africa. In 1979, at just 36, Ashe had a heart-attack, requiring a quadruple bypass, bringing the hereditary aspect of heart disease to the national conversation. Ashe was infected with HIV by a blood transfusion during his second open-heart surgery in 1983, a fact he kept private for his young daughter’s sake until 1996, when a reporter forced him to go public. Ashe subsequently founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, which benefited from his prominence to make significant progress on both fronts. Among many other honors, Ashe was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and has an ESPY Award, a USPS postage stamp, and a boulevard in Richmond named after him.

Links: June 28, 2020

  1. Controversial? Maybe. Essential? Absolutely → Nikole Hannah Jones on What is Owed
  2. More reading for this moment. And hopefully many moments until it becomes happily irrelevant → You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument ※ The First Year Out ※ Reconstruction In America: Racial Violence after the Civil War, 1865-1876
  3. Boompilled! → Boompilled: Fireworks Conspiracy Theories Are Bursting Across The Internet ※ The Boom in Fireworks Conspiracy Theories ※ But it doesn’t all have to be serious: I’m the Guy Setting Off Fireworks Every Night In Your Neighborhood and I Have You Right Where I Want You
  4. Last week I offered you a chance to buy Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s childhood home for me, allowing me to retire in style. No one did, so this week I offer you a new opportunity → An Entire Old West Town Is for Sale. But It’s in New Zealand.
  5. Coronavirus + Summer? → Walking Is Making a Major Comeback ※ In Praise of the Flâneur (apropos of nothing: flâneur is one of my favorite sounding words)
  6. I had no idea the bake sale had an activist history → The Power of the Bake Sale ※ Speaking of food, some of these recipes look really good, and not just because I’m hungry right now: cook a classical feast: nine recipes from ancient Greece and Rome
  7. Download and print this book designed by Big Jump Press in June 2020 in response to the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor → Read This Out Loud ※ While I have your…ear? Eyes? More bookish links: A clever overview of a variety of book critters, including literal Bookworms Thanks, Reader M.! ※ Page Through This Incredibly Detailed Sino-Tibetan Book Printed in 1410 ※ Rare Book School Lectures archive
  8. John Peel’s iconic radio show ran on BBC radio from 1967-2004. This epic, growing list is at 968 sessions and counting → John Peel Sessions
  9. This week’s miscellany → U.K. Museum Reimagines Classic Art With Face Masks // Pick a year and play those hits with Nostalgia Machine // Identifying Generational Gaps in Music // I Am Liesl von Trapp and I Owe the Resistance an Apology // In Taiwan, Pizza Hut Created Ramen Pizza // Plants fill seats at Barcelona opera house concert // Book fountain page by page
  10. Today in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, are assassinated in Sarajevo, the causus belli of World War I. On this same day in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending the bloody war between Germany and the Allied Powers. In between, more than 9 million soldiers were killed and more than 21 million wounded…along with nearly 10 million civilian casualties. Sadly, this wasn’t the most deaths in the wars of human history, but it was almost inarguably as brutal as any if you consider the proportion of the fighting that involved trench warfare, chemical weapons, and direct hand-to-hand fighting in battles with death tolls nearly equalling those of the most deadly in history. It is absolutely inarguable that World War I is too often overlooked, overshadowed by World War II and the natural desensitization of time. ※ View the Treaty of Versailles as submitted to the U. S. Congress.

Links: June 21, 2020

  1. “I use time as a medium to define how long each portrait is colored in. 1 year of life = 1 minute of color.” Powerful. → stolen
  2. Be careful who you donate to. → “The Black Lives Matter Foundation” Raised Millions. It’s Not Affiliated With The Black Lives Matter Movement.
  3. An interesting, interactive approach. Slide a few dials around and see how your intuition compares to reality. → Do You Know How Divided White And Black Americans Are On Racism?
  4. Apologies to all the people named Karen who aren’t Karens → You Know Karen. But do you know the names that could be “other Karens” or “future Karens?” We found them using data.
  5. “…an imaginary museum that explores the strange place between art and curiosities.” → The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
  6. “Watch Netflix at work by making it look like you’re on a conference call.” → Netflix Hangouts
  7. I’ve never asked for donations, but I’ll make an exception if you want throw this my way. → Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s childhood home up for sale, complete with pool, party room and library for 22,000 books
  8. Play like a child at home → Fold-n-Fly database of Paper Airplane Designs ► Play like a researcher at home → Seventy-Five Scientific Research Projects You Can Contribute to Online
  9. For laughs → Texting With Famous Authors ※ For “dawwwwww” laughs → San Diego Zoo’s baby pygmy hippo makes splashy debut ※ For grimacing laughs → This Foot Does Not Exist ※ For pained laughs → Name a thing that lasted longer than the Confederacy. (New Coke, among other things).
  10. Today in 1788 the U.S. Constitution is ratified. Today in 1964, civil- and voting-rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are abducted and lynched by a group including a Deputy Sheriff under the supervision of a Sheriff known for ignoring racially motivated crimes. ※ Today in 2015, Charles Marshall, armed with a cordless drill with no bit, is shot and killed by police after his wife called the police because he was suicidal and had sliced open one of his wrists. The cop told Marshall’s distraught wife that, “We [police] are trained to kill.” ※ Also today in 2015, Adrian Simental, unarmed, is killed by police responding to a psychiatric call. ※ Today in 2016, Pedro Cruz-Amado, wielding a metal chair, is killed by the police responding to a psychiatric call. ※ Also today in 2016, Lane Lesko, armed with a BB gun, is shot and killed by police responding to a psychiatric call.

Links: June 14, 2020

  1. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been doing a lot of reading in recent weeks (months, and years). Obviously, reading (alone) isn’t enough. → What Is an Anti-Racist Reading List For? ※ What Is Optical Allyship? 3 Ways To Be Actively Anti-Racist
  2. Among so many other things contributing to America’s mass incarceration problem, the predatory system of cash bail could be the easiest one to fix. → How Cash Bail Works ※ We Can’t End Mass Incarceration Without Ending Money Bail ※ The Fight to End Cash Bail
  3. “Defund the police” is a slogan that demands, like many big ideas small enough to fit on a sign, some unpacking, not least because it is actually just the first step necessary for a much larger project. Dismissing the idea is easy, as is retreating to limited—painfully fruitless—ideas of incremental reforms. But with a little effort, the possibility of transformation becomes a vision that’s hard to unsee → Vox provides a solid overview: The “abolish the police” movement, explained by 7 scholars and activists. And the Cardozo Law Review goes deep: Are Police Obsolete? Breaking Cycles of Violence Through Abolition Democracy
  4. While I’m at it, abolishing prison, the malignant fraternal twin of militarized and misguided policing, isn’t as outlandish as too many think. → What Is Prison Abolition? ※ A former prosecutor’s case for prison abolition ※ Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind
  5. This Friday is Juneteenth.
  6. Truly novel ways to promote social distancing are already becoming rare. But they’re out there. → Shoes for Social Distancing
  7. I understand nothing of how this works, but the results are mind-boggling. Just look at page 8. → EAR2FACE extrapolates, with already uncanny accuracy, images of peoples’ faces from pictures of their ears. Let that sink in for a minute. ※ Also impressive, with near-future implications: Real-time Face Video Swapping From A Single Portrait.
  8. Some artistic delights → Lin Yung Cheng’s conceptual photography ※ Karin Pfeiff Boschek’s pie art ※ Chris (Simpsons artist)’s strange, funny, surreal, mystifying illustrations ※ Calida Garcia Rawles’ paintings of people in water ※ Samantha French’s painting of people underwater
  9. Sometimes you just need a laugh. → 40 Memes That Perfectly Sum Up The Trainwreck That Is 2020 ※ Punhub
  10. Today in 1939, actress and singer Ethel Waters becomes the first African American to star in her own television show, The Ethel Waters Show. The show, a variety program that included a dramatic performance of the Broadway play Mamba’s Daughters, adapted as a vehicle for Waters by DuBose Heyward, author of the original novel, may in fact have been the first time an African American ever appeared on television. Born when her mother was in her mid-teens, raised in poverty, and married at thirteen to an abusive husband, Waters struck out on her own, working as a maid for less than \$5 a week, until she was discovered singing at a party on her 17th birthday. Also an acclaimed singer, Waters won an Emmy Award, was nominated for an Academy Award and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, among many honors. ※ ► Listen to Waters’ version of “Stormy Weather,” eventually listed in the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress. ※ ► Watch Waters’ “Am I Blue,” from the 1929 film On With the Show, the first film to be recorded in color (though only black and white copies survive). ※ See and learn about the historic Ethel Waters Residence, Waters’ residence in the mid 1920s, and home to an important literary salon during the Harlem Renaissance.

Links: June 7, 2020

  1. Explainer: what is systemic racism and institutional racism? ※ Racial Injustice has Benefited Me – A Confession
  2. The anger behind the protests, explained in 4 charts ※ Don’t Call It Rioting ※ There isn’t a simple story about looting
  3. Violent protests are not the story. Police violence is. ※ How Western media would cover Minneapolis if it happened in another country ※ Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide
  4. De-escalation Keeps Protesters And Police Safer. Departments Respond With Force Anyway. ※ How Much Do We Need The Police? ※ How to reform American police, according to experts ※ National Police Accountability Project ※ 8CantWait
  5. Brené Brown with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist ※ Kendi on The American Nightmare ※ Q&A with Ibram X. Kendi on the Current Protests, Joining BU, and Anti-racist Research
  6. What it means to be anti-racist ※ First, Listen. Then, Learn: Anti-Racism Resources For White People ※ Anti-Racist Resource Guide ※ You can order today from these black-owned independent bookstores
  7. Seeing White ※ 21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge ※ Anti-Racism Daily Newsletter ※ Guide to Allyship ※ Ally Resource List
  8. [Photos and Voices of the George Floyd Protests: ‘We Deserve to Be Heard’](Malformed URL.) ※ From Minneapolis to Syria, Artists Are Honoring George Floyd Through Murals and Public Artworks ※ Meet the Artists Behind Some of the Most Widespread Images Amid George Floyd Protests
  9. There are many excellent places to donate in the links above. The five I chose: Justice for George Floyd ※ Black Visions Collective ※ We The Protesters ※ Campaign Zero ※ National Bail Fund Network
  10. Today in 1943, poet, teacher and activist Nikki Giovanni is born in Knoxville, Tennessee. Once dubbed “the poet of the Black Revolution,” gained fame as one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement and has continued to be one of America’s most important writers ever since. Giovanni has taught at Virginia Tech (where she is a University Distinguished Professor) since 1987, where she delivered an acclaimed commencement address/chant poem after the 2007 mass shooting there. Giovanni has won seven NAACP Image awards, the Langston Hughes Award, the Rosa Parks Women of Courage Award, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, the Maya Angelou Lifetime Achievement Award and a Presidential Medal of Honor, among scores of others. ※ Poet Nikki Giovanni On The Darker Side Of Her Life ※ ► James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni, a conversation (1971) ※ ► Nikki Giovanni Reads her own Poems ※ ► Explorations in Black Leadership: Nikki Giovanni ※ The best place to start reading Giovanni’s work: The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998.

Links: May 31, 2020

  1. For the LOLs → BIRD NESTING STYLES: A CRITICAL REVIEW ※ A new MasterClass: Your Dad Teaches Loading the Dishwasher ※ ► Classic Warner Bros. Bloopers
  2. This Word Does Not Exist uses text generation algorithms to “make up words, definitions and examples from scratch.” (Thanks Reader S.)
  3. The Kentucky Miner Who Scammed Americans by Claiming He Was Hitler and Plotting a ‘Revolt’ With ‘Spaceships’
  4. Hong Kong Shop Offers ‘Tear Gas’ Flavored Ice Cream in Support of Pro-Democracy Movement
  5. The Hellbox was where metal sorts (pieces of type) were tossed after printing. Sorting the used type out was a job for apprentices known as printer’s devils, a position once held by Walt Whitman, Ambrose Bierce, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain. ¶ In 1990, renowned print and typography firm Linotype merged with another company, becoming Linotype-Hell, and later made a Photoshop like product with the wonderful name Linotype-Hell DaVinci. ※ See (but please don’t use) the typographically horrifying Hellvetica font. ※ Watch ► a clip from the “Printer’s Devil” episode of The Twilight Zone. (Thanks for the spark, Reader B.)
  6. Awwww, Penguins Get Private Tour of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. ※ Meanwhile, somewhere in California, there arose a pop-up Emergency Art Museum.
  7. ‘Iso’, ‘boomer remover’ and ‘quarantini’: how coronavirus is changing our language
  8. The Shakespeare and Company Project lets you browse the records (what they borrowed, where they lived, and sometimes scans of the original cards) of the many famous (and not so famous) authors and philosophers who used the renowned bookstore‘s lending library from 1919-1962. As the center of bohemian literary culture, this means notables including James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein…but literally thousands of more lesser-known (and forgotten) names.
  9. Eye candy → Parker Thornton’s Photography ※ Polly Verity’s sensual faces curved and folded from a single sheet of paper ※ Andoni Bastarikka’s sand sculptures that near the uncanny valley ※ a parliament of shells
  10. Today in 1819, poet, essayist and journalist Walt Whitman is born in Huntington, New York. ¶ Whitman’s wild free verse was the first to clearly establish an American poetry, breaking from its English roots. Deeply influenced by the strange, contradictory world of sexuality in the Victorian influenced world of antebellum America—and some brutal experiences as a hospital volunteer during the Civil War—Whitman’s poetry was expansive, populist, sensual, and simultaneously glorified individualism and the people. It’s no surprise that Whitman’s influence can be seen on all kinds of writers, including William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, John Berryman, and the entire Beat movement. It’s not a stretch to argue that without Whitman to play against, we wouldn’t have poets like Wallace Stevens or T. S. Eliot. ¶ Everything you could want to know about Walt Whitman can be found in The Walt Whitman Archive ※ Read (and listen to) Leaves of Grass. ※ ► Watch Brooklynites reading “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” ※ The Whitman, Alabama project has people from across that state telling stories of their lives…and reading Whitman. ※ Whitman wrote two famous poems when President Lincoln died: hear ► James Earl Jones reads “When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d”; read “O Captain! My Captain!. ※ Or, wait, Should Walt Whitman Be #Cancelled?

Links: May 24, 2020

  1. Mail Art, a Quirky Pursuit That Hasn’t Been Popular Since the ’60s, Is Suddenly Having a Renaissance Amid the Worldwide Lockdown Thanks, Reader J.
  2. Tiny Animals on Fingers ※ Angela Lansbury as teapots Thanks, Reader B.
  3. Fractal wrongness is “the state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person’s worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person’s worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.”
  4. Russian Doll words (not about dolls) ※ Russian Artists Michael Zajkov’s Ultra-Realistic Dolls (all dolls) ※ My Secret Life as a Reporter for “Doll Reader” Magazine (a little bit about dolls)
  5. LibraryThing was GoodReads before there was a GoodReads, much less before Amazon barged in, and it is now free to all forever.
  6. The ancient Greeks saw all the colors. ※ The Ancient Romans Gave Us “Bones of the Dead” Cookies ※ Colonialism Shaped Body Shaming ※ The Black Death Yielded British Pub Culture
  7. William Warren’s Shelves for Life are “designed to be taken down and reassembled as a coffin,” presumably for the owner, but possibly for that one friend who never returns the books they “borrow.”
  8. “Deep-speare!” → This AI Poet Mastered Rhythm, Rhyme, and Natural Language to Write Like Shakespeare
  9. Door Dash is Evil ※ Grubhub is Evil ※ Copyright Claims are Evil ※ The SCAN System Used by Law Enforcement is Evil ※ Supermarket Organic Veggies are Evil?
  10. Today in 1844, Samuel Morse sends the first long-distance telegram from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in Washington, D. C. to the Mount Clare railroad station in Baltimore, Maryland, tapping out, “What hath God wrought” in his own eponymous dot & dash code. Originally Morse’s telegraph system used paper tape, but operators soon realized they could make out the letters from just the clicking of the receiver, simplifying the system considerably. In 1861, the Western Union Telegraph System completed the first transcontinental U. S. telegraph line, and by 1866 the first permanent trans-Atlantic cable was completed. Buoyed by Thomas Edison’s invention of the Quadraplex system allowing four simultaneous messages to be transmitted, the telegraph had transformed global communication by the mid-1900s. ※ Learn Morse Code using Google Creative Labs’ Morse Typing Trainer. ※ For the less industrious among us, there’s the Morse Code Translator, which can encode and send messages to your friends (or enemies). ※ Check out this collection of Strange CW (Telegraph) Keys, including (working) models made from rubber stamps, lollipops, bananas, a handsaw and more. ※ FYI: the longest palindrome in Morse Code is “intransigence.”
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